Are The Seattle Sounders Changing Their Ways?

When the Seattle Sounders beat the Vancouver Whitecaps this past Saturday, they were able to do something not many teams have been able to do since Carl Robinson took over. Slow them down and lull them to sleep by passing the ball around. Theoretically speaking, if you don’t have the ball, you can’t score. Yes, there is the off chance you can score on a quick counter, which is something the Whitecaps are prone to do.

The Sounders were visibly on their back foot the first 15-20 minutes of the match. The Whitecaps, at one point, had 71% of the possession according to the broadcast. Even though the Sounders scored in the 5th minute on Chad Barrett’s first goal of the season, the Whitecaps were taking it to the Sounders.

The Sounders were unable to hold possession when they needed it the most. A majority of the first 20 minutes were played in the Sounders half of the field. If it weren’t for a great save by Sounders goalkeeper Stefan Frei, the match would have been tied 1-1 after just the seventh minute.

Late in the first half, the Sounders were able to string together a 25 pass sequence just prior to Barrett’s second goal of the night.

As you can see in the photo above, only a handful of those passes were actually in the Whitecaps end. A majority of the passes were nearly dead center of the pitch. The passes got the Whitecaps to move around and in the end it finally created space for Marco Pappa to find Barrett, who was making a great run. If you want to see a video of the sequence, click the link here.

The last few weeks, the Sounders have been finding themselves with more possession. As far as this writer can remember, the Sounders don’t usually dominate the possession stat. The Sounders finished the game +12% on possession as you can see in the photo below.

It’s only two games, but you can also see in the photo below how they did with possession in the second half against the Columbus Crew. Granted, Columbus had a two goal lead and was absorbing pressure.

The game against the Whitecaps showed that they are able to maintain possession with a lead and that can be a sign of good things to come for the Sounders and their fans. As a Sounders fan, one must ask if this is a change in direction for the Sounders or are they just adapting better to their opponents than they have in the past? It’s hard to tell at this point, but it will be interesting to see in the next few weeks.

It's nothing to write home about, but it's also an important factor to keep an eye on. If the Sounders are moving to a more possession dominant team, the rest of MLS needs to watch out.